HOLD YOUR APPLAUSE "I know how good I am. I don't need an industry machine to tell me I'm great."

Ask any group of teens on Blue Hill Ave how many of them rap and you'll get more affirmatives than you would surveying kids at Mass and Boylston for slap-bass skills. Allston might be a crab bucket of indie-rockers, and one in three JP residents is an abstract painter, but MCs in Boston's black communities have more competition than nail salons in Dudley Square.

"People have no idea how many great MCs there are out here," says Big Shug protégé Singapore Kane, whose first official album, Living Militant, dropped recently on Brick Records. "Just because they haven't put out albums doesn't mean they aren't dope. I have longevity, though. I've fought for my place, represented Boston in New York, and never given up. I nudged out a lot of dudes to be the best rapper in Mattapan hands down, and that's why Shug chose me."

Although Massachusetts is known for its underground rap talent, it's largely perceived that Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan (ironically enough) have been disproportionately slept on. Explanations vary, but Kane cites the number of gifted lyricists who are incarcerated, and the inability of some rappers from depressed pockets to compete in the digital age. Long gone are the days when MCs were discovered shredding freestyles in city parks, as Kane was nearly five years ago.

"I stand out for a few reasons," he says. "I don't really consider myself a street dude, but you can look me in the eyes and see that I got stabbed right in my face. I've seen someone get shot a couple of times, and it's something that will give you nightmares. Rappers need to stop glorifying bullshit and tell both sides of the story. If you talk about selling drugs, then you have to talk about going to jail."

Although he's been spitting for a decade — and dropped three well-executed hand-to-hand mixtapes since 2007 — Kane's acclaim just recently spread from Boston's hardest corners to the Web and beyond. Since getting tapped by Shug to carry on the Gang Starr Foundation tradition, he's appeared on several singles with his mentor and toured Europe three times. The Shug connection also opened garage doors for Kane to spill his multi-syllabic mutiny atop backdrops by hip-hop giant DJ Premier, a beatmaker with whom concrete-spawned MCs from Mattapan to Panama dream of working.

"I know how good I am," says Kane. "I don't need an industry machine to tell me I'm great, because I've had better compliments than that — Preme first told me I was dope years ago. When I recorded 'My Boston' with Big Shug and Termanology, I went in to spit a rough take and Preme said we were keeping it. I told him I could do it better, but he said, 'Trust me — I've been doing this for 20 years.' "

Kane has embraced his slow ascent, and he remains determined to continue climbing the old-fashioned way: from the curb to the club to above the clouds. Even in his current incarnation as a subterranean force — he's guest-starred on releases with such Boston cult favorites as Bomshot, Chan, and Slaine — the Mattapan traditionalist has not abandoned the ultimate street dream of signing to a major: "I know that I would have to wait or get put on the shelf for a while. But I'm waiting right now — so what's the difference?"

Fashawn | Boy Meets World Since Boy Meets World dropped into my radar a month ago, I’ve discovered how much magic stretches clean across the tracklist, and I was planning to include it on my year-end list. Yet more immediate praise is due.

Fresh legends Nine out of 10 rap legends prefer People Under the Stairs. (The holdout is a crackhead.) That's no joke — in my hundreds of interviews with dudes who brought the noise and funk before the big ship sunk ( circa 1997), California underground heroes Thes One and Double K have been as popular a subject as the exploitation of old-school luminaries.

Man at work It's easy to manufacture illusions of rap stardom. Any MySpace whiteboy with a few grand can fill a mixtape with big cameos, and for a little more, guests will even shout his name out. But though such pay-for-spray practices have kept established artists eating they've also compromised the organic dynamics that once pushed the genre forward.

Fresh Vetz | Vet Status It's a bright sign for hip-hop when at least three promising subterranean sluggers ride flows comparable to that of the almighty Nas.

Ape & Undu | Jaw & Order This is not your typical bi-racial indie-rap duo with a whiteboy who rips and a tandem token black guy who holds the honky's jockstrap.

Two great flavors "When I said that I wanted to use 'What We Do' as a single," Freeway explains, "people said it couldn't happen because it didn't have a hook. You know how the rest of that one goes."

Ivory and ebony Hip-hop will never be post-racial. Pigment plays a major role at every level, and that's not always a bad thing.

Lady killer Since the only way to write about female rappers is to harp on gender, here's the catchy kick-paragraph buzznote that we're playing: Dessa has more in common with black Republicans than you might realize. Although she's proud to hail from Venus, the poetic Minnesota songstress has refused to let prejudice paralyze her rise in a male-weighted industry.

CZARFACE SOARS ABOVE THE CLOUDS | February 11, 2013 This week 7LES and Inspectah Deck drop Czarface , a full-length work of adventurous genius revolving around a metal-clad protagonist who feeds on destruction.

THE BPD ADDS INSULT TO INJURY | February 05, 2013 At times, this kind of decision makes you wonder whether the BPD is saving its best awards for officers who've been involved in the death of civilians.